


Worth Mentioning

by HalfASlug



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 18:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10418280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfASlug/pseuds/HalfASlug
Summary: Hardy went on a date. Ellie is completely okay with it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written after s3e4 and takes place the day after.

Juggling the folder she had left in her car that morning and a cup of coffee, Ellie shouldered open the door to the station with a nod to PC Bob on the desk. She’d already been at work for three hours, but the room was filled with constables just starting their morning shifts.

Sipping her coffee, she stopped herself thinking about when these constant sixteen hour shifts would end. There were more important things in life than her sleeping pattern.

She managed to edge past a PC discussing a stolen bike with a teenager and ended up by the desk. It was too loud for a proper conversation, but she made a face to show how awkward it was to get through and Bob grinned. He turned back to the woman he was talking to and Ellie heard a snippet of what she was saying.

“...belongs to Alec Hardy and I wasn’t sure-”

“Hardy?” Ellie stopped and noticed the woman was holding a police warrant card in her hands. She couldn’t say that she recognised the woman and she was dressed casually so she doubted she was an officer.

“Uh, yes,” the woman replied, startled at the intrusion. “Alec Hardy? I have his badge thing. Does he work here?”

“Unfortunately,” Ellie quipped. “He’s my boss. I could take it up to him, if you want?”

“Of course!” She handed it to Ellie, who balanced it on the stack of files in her arms. “I was worried he wouldn’t be allowed in the building without it or something.”

PC Bob chuckled. “There’s no way anyone could mistake that grumpy mug for anyone else. He would have been fine.”

The woman frowned. “Grumpy? I thought - I mean, he seemed a bit shy-”

“Do you know him, then?” Ellie asked. A theory as to who the woman was was forming and she gave her another look over. She wasn’t just casually, but nicely dressed, in clothes that looked a bit on the expensive side but weren’t overly posh. At a guess, she was a few years younger than herself.

“Not really. We just - well-”

Ellie smiled, though she wasn’t sure why. “You were his date, weren’t you?”

The woman blushed and shrugged. “He dropped it afterwards but he had just sort of… walked off already.”

She gestured to the warrant card on Ellie’s files. She looked down at it without really paying attention. Too much else was going on in her head. The woman was beautiful and seemed pleasant enough. In fact, she reminded Ellie a little of Hardy with her awkward fidgeting. 

It would have been a lie to say she hadn’t wondered what had happened. He had came home alone but he still could have kissed her. In fact, he could have just gone almost straight back to her place and she had bumped into him walking back from there. It had been years since she had dated anyone. Things were bound to be different.

Thankfully, years of being a detective had taught her to take in the entire picture before jumping to conclusions. Hardy had left abruptly, which wasn’t unlike him. She had only known him to linger saying goodbye once but she didn’t like to think about that day. The woman had come to the station to hand his property in rather than call him, so perhaps she didn’t have his number? Or maybe she was using it as an excuse to see him?

Most importantly in Ellie’s mind, however, she wondered why she was putting so much thought into this whole incident to start with.

“He’s an odd one, is Hardy,” she said, not really sure how else to describe his aversion to social niceties.

The woman nodded. “He did mention that you thought so.”

“Me?”

She winced. “Sorry. Are you not  _ Millahr? _ ” she asked with a terrible Scottish accent before wincing in embarrassment.

Ellie giggled. “Yeah, but how did you-”

“He sort of - well - he mentioned you.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I should be off. Thanks for your help.” The woman waved and turned into the crowd without another glance back. 

Ellie blinked. Hardy knew how to pick them. Where did he find her, anyway?

From beside her, PC Bob chuckled. “Rule number one is don’t talk about other women on a date. Stupid bastard.”

“We can’t all be as wise as you, Bob.”

Once back upstairs in CID, Ellie dumped the files and coffee on her desk and hurried to Hardy’s office. 

“Missing something?” she asked as she barged through the door.

He didn’t even look up from his computer. “Peace and quiet.” 

“Guess again.”

“Do I have to?”

Ellie chucked the warrant card at him. It landed on his keyboard and he stared at it for a moment. “Where did you find this?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes. That’s why I asked.”

“It got handed into reception,” Ellie explained, walking up to his desk. “It was found on the pavement by a blonde woman. Blue eyes.”

“Right.”

“Slightly horrified expression on her face like she was still recovering from a bad date.”

Hardy sighed in a way that only he could; as though it took every muscle in his body and happened completely involuntarily.

“I’m only joking,” Ellie said, trying not to giggle at how uncomfortable she had made him. “How did you lose your card? Get lost in her eyes so-”

“Shut up, Miller.”

“Did you even realise you had lost it? Or were you too busy-”

“How much do I have to pay you to not finish that sentence?”

He shoved the warrant card into his pocket and rubbed the bridge of nose underneath his glasses. The action made him look older but was so familiar to her that it reassured Ellie. He might be going out on dates with mysterious blondes but he was still her Hardy.

Well, Hardy. He wasn’t hers. 

“She seems nice. Pretty,” Ellie added truthfully. She hoped the expression on her face didn’t look as pinned on as it felt. Unbidden in the back of her mind, she started singing  _ “smile though your heart is aching” _ . Which was silly. Her heart wasn’t aching. That would be ridiculous. It was just… doing something weird.

Hardy grunted.

“So… are you seeing her again?”

“Go away, Miller.”

“Bloody hell,” she huffed. “I’m just making conversation!”

“Make it somewhere else,” he snapped, finally looking at her. “Why do you care anyway?”

“I don’t!” Ellie’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, waiting for a reason or a comeback or  _ anything.  _ Instead, she was left with nothing but a choking noise and Hardy’s eyes boring into her own like she had something to hide.

She turned on her heel and stormed out of his office.

“Knob,” she muttered and she viciously logged back into her own computer. It did nothing to stop an annoying voice in her head asking her why she apparently did care so much about Hardy going on a date.

Days past and Ellie tried to keep her teasing to a minimum, but Hardy only encouraged her with his increasingly irritated reactions. She told herself it was only because she enjoyed winding him up, and yet she still latched on to every fragment of information he dropped. 

When he let slip that he had found the woman - Zoe, as she had found out the same day she had met her - on a dating app, Ellie had to park the car she was driving because she was laughing so much.

“You can stop going on about this now,” he grumbled when she was ready to drive again. “I don’t think we’re going to see each other again, anyway.”

“On no, why?” She hoped she sounded more sincere than she felt.

He shrugged. “I only went because Daisy wanted me to. She thinks I work too much.”

Ellie snorted. “You do.”

“It seemed to make her happy so...” he trailed off. Ellie wished she wasn’t driving so she could watch his reactions. “I think I talked about work too much. On the… on the date.”

This was the first time he had used the D word. Ellie nearly forgot to break at a roundabout.

“That’s not too surprising,” she told him bracingly. “You don’t  _ not _ talk about work until someone has known you at least three weeks.”

“I know, but...” He sighed.

If he spoke about work to Zoe, then that was probably how he mentioned her. With so much of what they did being confidential, it was hard to pick conversation topics that were safe. Seeing as she was still the only person he could tolerate for more than ten minutes, it wasn’t surprising that her name had cropped up.

But Zoe didn’t just hear her name, she remembered it. Just how much had Hardy mentioned her?

Ellie pulled out onto a long stretch of coastal road and relaxed. Seeing the water and hills stretched out ahead of her always had that effect. The freedom of it was like nothing she had ever known. The long drives in silence up to Sandbrook with Hardy had always left her feeling tense. She wondered if that was how Hardy felt about Broadchurch.

Or how he used to feel about it.

She tamped down a smile at the memory.

“It’s difficult,” Hardy said suddenly. “I know my job. I like my job so I just...”

Ellie tried to stay still, as though Hardy was a wild animal she shouldn’t spook. Although, Hardy talking about something personal would probably have the same reaction as a wild animal if she spooked him in a confined space.

“You like other things though,” she said delicately. “Talk about them.”

“I know, I know. I talked about Daisy, but I didn’t mention her before so that just caused an issue.” He turned and looked out of the passenger window dejectedly.

Having always been able to speak to people with ease, Ellie wasn’t sure what advice to give him. If anything, she needed to learn when to hold back herself. She tried to remember to back when they first met and what it was that changed so they stopped being just colleagues. It had been so long now, that she could barely remember the days of dreading seeing him at the station every day.

Now, when she was spending her days interviewing increasingly shady men, he was the silver lining. His unshaved scowl in the mornings was welcoming. Talking to him was easy and their silences were comfortable.  

“You talk to me. Now, anyway,” she added. “Just - I don’t know - pretend you’re talking to me.”

“You?”

“Don’t be a dickhead.”

“‘M’not.”

Ellie tightened her grip on the wheel. The more she spoke, the more the feeling in her stomach clenched. Just the idea of Hardy using her advice, pretending he was with her, on a date set her on edge. As always, her natural instinct when uncomfortable was to talk.

“Brush your hair. Iron your suit. Don’t talk about work. You can be interesting and funny when you’re not being a twat.”

There was a pause in which Ellie worried she’d said too much. 

“I’m funny?”

“No. Now you’re being a twat,” she snapped. It was unnecessarily harsh but also seemed entirely needed. 

For the next couple of days, neither of them mentioned Hardy’s love life or his sense of humour. Ellie joked with herself that it was more like Schrodinger’s love life, but she doubted Hardy would appreciate her telling him. That aside, she noticed how they were getting on more than normal with only a couple of snipes at each other a day.

Initially she thought it was because they were getting used to the brutal schedule they had committed themselves to in order to solve the case. That all changed when she caught herself smiling at Hardy being rude to an evasive witness. The cocky shit had been trying to show off, his gaze constantly flicking to Ellie to see if she responded. When the only reaction she gave was to Hardy shutting him down, he answered the rest of the questions they asked properly, if a bit downheartedly.

From then on, Ellie took note of all the times Hardy amused her. Then she started picking up on the times he would ask after her boys or her dad. After a particularly harrowing conversation with Trish, he asked if she was okay while resting his hand on her shoulder. She stared at him, eyes wide with concern, and came to a chilling conclusion.

Alec Hardy was kind, caring, funny and she genuinely enjoyed spending time with him.

The rest of the day went by in a haze. That night, she accidentally walked past her house on the way home from work.

Hiding this new discovery from everyone else was a simple case of avoiding physical contact with Hardy and any time alone with him. That was much easier said than done as she still spent nearly ten hours a day by his side, trying not to think about it too much. 

There were times that she forgot about all of it and slipped into the easy back and forth of their relationship, winding him up just to see him squirm and setting up each other’s jokes. 

It was these moments that reminded her that when everyone else left her to face her nightmares alone, Hardy had stood by her. She had plenty of friends, but she only had one like Hardy.

That thought alone was enough to keep her up at night.

“But I need that!” cried Ian as Hardy bagged up his laptop a week later. Another lie from another suspect meant another late night and another item being taken in for evidence. “I do all my paperwork on it!”

Ellie held the door open for Hardy, but he paused on the threshold to look back at Ian. “I don’t really care.”

And with a shrug, he left the building.

As soon as the door was shut, Ellie burst out laughing.

“What’s wrong with you?” Hardy asked. The streetlights made his pale skin glow and highlighted the deep bags under his eyes. It only made Ellie laugh harder.

“You’re like Broadchurch’s answer to Rhett Butler!”

“Who?”

“From - it doesn’t matter.” She was still tittering at her comparison when they spotted her car down the street. “There’s no way you could pull off the outfit, anyway.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve stockings I could give it ago,” he deadpanned.

“I don’t know. Maybe you could surprise us all and have the best legs in town.” Ellie hadn’t thought before she spoke and she glanced at Hardy to check he didn’t look like he was about to have her sectioned. Luckily, she was rewarded with a wry smile.

When they got to the car, she rummaged in her bag for the keys, having forgotten to get them before. For some reason the idea of Hardy in stockings had wiped all practical thought from her mind.

“Miller?”

“Hmm?” She didn’t look up from her bag.

“Can you - Miller.”

Something in his tone made her look up. She had never seen him look so nervous before. In fact, he looked downright terrified.

“What?” she asked when all he did was stare.

He appeared to be having trouble with the power of speech. He tried biting his lip and sighing but still nothing of substance occurred. She was about to continue the search for her keys when he worked out what he was doing with his mouth.

Unfortunately, it was the last thing she expected.

Without any warning, Hardy leant forward and pressed a kiss to her lips.

Or at least he would have done if she hadn’t moved at the last minute and he got her chin instead.

He moved back immediately and blinked as though stunned by his own audacity.

“What the fuck?” Ellie heard herself say over the rushing in her ears.

“Sorry.”

Neither of them moved. Even though she had been there the entire time, Ellie was struggling to follow the conversation they were trying to have.

“What are you doing?”

Hands on his hips, Hardy stared at his shoes. Eventually, he looked up. “Talking to you.”

He sounded as though he had already regretted what he had said before he had finished speaking.

“That wasn’t talking!” she screeched, forgetting they were in a residential area.

Hardy covered his face with his hands. “Shit.”

“What is wrong with you?”

“Sorry.”

“Seriously - have you hit your head?” she spat at him. She rounded the car to the driver’s side, finally finding her keys and not taking her eyes off him in case he decided to pounce again. Meanwhile, Hardy appeared to be trying curl up into a shell he didn’t have. He rubbed his eyes, pacing on the spot, and Ellie wondered if she hadn’t been his lift, if he would have just walked off.

If he had, she doubted she would ever see him again. He looked about ready to start a new life, living in the wild on top of the cliffs. For a brief moment, Ellie wondered if the pull of the Abominable Scotsman would help the Broadchurch tourist trade.

She opened the car door and the noise startled him into speech.

“Can we just - I’m sorry,” he repeated. “Let’s just forget-”

“Wanker,” she hissed at him and threw herself into the driver’s seat so she didn’t have to look at him anymore.

To her surprise, she heard him get in as well. As he shut the door, they were plunged into the most uncomfortable silence Ellie had ever known. Thankfully, the conversation they had just had was still echoing in her head, possibly due to volume it had been held.

“How the fuck was that  _ talking?”  _ She glared at him but he had his eyes fixed on the windscreen.

“Drop it.”

She gripped the wheel and resisted the urge to headbutt it a few times.

The truth was, as much as she was trying to suppress it, the thought of forgetting what had happened scared her more than anything else that had happened that evening. She hadn’t been ready for it, definitely hadn’t been expecting it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t  _ want _ it to happen. Did it?

A bit of warning to help her prepare and maybe - just  _ maybe _ \- she wouldn’t have started screaming at him.

God, did she actually want him to kiss her?

Knowing she should at least make an effort to start the car, she continued to stare straight ahead, unmoving.

If that’s what he thought talking meant, then no wonder he was such a shit conversationalist. She dreaded to think how his bloody date had really gone. At least in the future he might follow her advice and not be such an embarrassment.

_ “Just - I don’t know - pretend you’re talking to me.” _

Fantastic advice, really. That way he would call any unfortunate woman who swiped unwisely by her surname and treat her like a taxi service for two years.

_ “What are you doing?” _

_ “Talking to you.” _

Shit.

Ellie wetted her top lip, only then noticing how dry her mouth was.

“That woman. Zoe.” She summoned all of courage and faced Hardy. He was still avoiding her eye. “Did you ever see her again?”

“Why-?”

“Did you?”

He exhaled slowly. “No.”

“Hardy?”

She would never know what it was that made him turn to her then. It could have been her softer tone or maybe even he had a limit on how much he could ignore someone. However, Ellie would always remember the helpless look in his eyes and how determined she had been to never see it again.

Her lips were on his before she had chance to second guess herself again.

It lasted only a second but she realised too late that she was trembling and didn’t want him to notice.

He eyes flickered over her face, searching for a trace of regret. When he couldn’t find one, he valiantly tried to brush a loose curl behind her ear, only for it to fall back into place. The corner of his mouth twitched.

“Have you hit  _ your _ head?

“Shut up.”

It was then he pulled her close and she went willingly, no longer caring if he realised how nervous she was. His kisses were restrained, as though he was worried he had forgotten what he was supposed to do and it only endeared him more to her.

She traced his lower lip with her tongue and neither of their nerves mattered after that.

The gear stick dug into her thigh but she didn’t care because now Ellie remembered how all of this was supposed to feel, yet at the same time, it was brand new. The thrill without the guilt. The comfort without the lies. It was from a past life, another Ellie, one that didn’t know the worst life could bring. This was dazzling and real. Technicolour, bursting into life before her.

Some time later, in a darkened car, in the middle of the night, breathing heavily and staring, unblinking, at him, it didn’t feel like she was taking a chance. It was as though everything was aligning and colliding until she could see the full picture. The mistakes and the misfortune that shaped them, blending together.

She wasn’t whole and he wasn’t home until now.

Where they went from there, was up to them.

**Author's Note:**

> Chibnall: throw your worst at me. I will make it end in them necking somehow even if you don't.


End file.
